Golden
by Sue Shay
Summary: Tag for 06x22 - Jane has time to think while waiting for the TSA's torture for messing with one of their airplanes. No, I don't own The Mentalist or any of these characters. They are firmly in Mr. Heller's highly capable hands and he's taking very good care of them for us.


A _humongous_ "Thank You" to my crit partners and friends **Make-Mine-A-Kiaora** and **Cumberland River Relic** for their honest support and feedback. Check out Chris's Lone Star State and CRR's Dream a Little Dream For Me, two excellent one-shots. They're in my favorites section.

* * *

"Short of murder, you're golden."

A wry smirk spread slowly across Patrick Jane's face, despite the blackness that surrounded his soul. Madeleine Hightower's words bounced around his mind like they'd come from an ironic reverb machine.

_Define 'golden', Madeleine,_ he thought to himself. _I bet it doesn't include bypassing airport security. Nobody messes with the TSA and Homeland Security._

At the moment he was in an interrogation room at the Key West airport, successfully forcing down the pain in his ankle by concentrating on the pain in his heart. It didn't help that he was being glared at by a TSA guard who looked uncomfortably like Marcus Pike.

Yes, Jane had felt golden. In his lifetime, he'd killed other humans and still he walked free. He'd gone from swindling little old ladies out of their inherited wealth to playing the federal government's house money. The easier money was the FBI. Why hadn't he thought of it earlier? It was hard work charming old ladies; all that smiling and complicated lying and making up compliments with the right amount of truth, half-truth and complete fabrication. By comparison, the Feds were easy. Spend a few hours thinking about their "problème du jour", watch them squirm a little under the weight of it, and then pull the frickin' answer out of a hat like he was a magician. It was fun in its special way. And when Lisbon came to join him in Austin, he especially enjoyed it.

The tiny trace of a smirk left his face.

Or…had enjoyed. There would be no more fun in anything he did. Now life was going to be torture.

_Teresa is gone._

He only had himself to blame. Getting away with murder had gone to his head. Even a badass like Abbott – the trickiest lock in the FBI puzzle— had been won over by the charms of a conman, although there was a lot of hard work behind figuring out exactly what Dennis's key was made of. The Voltron robot was a big help, but it was simply that first and foremost Abbott finally appreciated that the skill Jane had exhibited was being used for good things. It was a feather in his cap.

Even though Jane was an asshole while doing it.

The Pike Guard finished scribbling on his pad before lifting his gaze to glare. Jane could see it from the edge of his vision but who cared? The guard was nothing. Abbott was nothing. The FBI was nothing.

_I'm nothing without Teresa. What am I going to do without her?_

The answer? It came to him in a flash; it was the same answer that came to him on the island. He was going to go on with solving cases and putting criminals in prison and making things right for those whose cause was considered lost. This was what Teresa would want him to do.

That was the pisser of it. When McAllister killed Angela and Charlotte, Jane was obsessed with the need to avenge their deaths, that it was required for his memory of them. And whenever the self-sacrifice and pain came to be too much, he worked extra-hard to convince himself that it was what they would have wanted him to do. He didn't know if that was true – he couldn't. They were dead. Maybe that was part of his problem with the truth and why he didn't want to face it. In the end, the truth was that taking revenge wasn't as much for them as it was him and his wounded pride. He'd been on the top of the world, making the talk-show circuit, appearing on magazine covers, smiling that charming grin while raking in the gold like it was an entitlement. Then the grin was struck from his face with a gruesome yet completely effective roundhouse punch that he never saw coming. It was a massive blow to his ego.

And although so much good came from bringing down McAllister and exposing the Blake Association, one thing it didn't do was bring his family back. They weren't glad that he'd succeeded. They weren't overjoyed that he'd beat a murder rap or put criminals behind bars or escaped from a fate of days spent mumbling into his glass in a Venezuelan island cantina.

But Teresa had been glad of his return. It was evident she had been looking forward to it, looking to finally moving on. With perfect rearward clarity, he could now see that she already had to some degree and expected him to do the same, joining her with getting on with life. But when he didn't, when he continued to mess with her and manipulate her in order to keep the status quo, she got angry with him. Twenty-twenty hindsight is a spectacular thing; he realized that the whole world had moved on except him.

So much for being the smartest man in the room. Apparently that room was a casket that was pre-packed for his burial when he'd climbed willingly into it.

At least now he could see it. Teresa had opened his eyes to how egocentric and self-absorbed he'd been. Yes, he'd said he'd wanted her to be happy, but he truly didn't know what that meant. Everything he'd done, he'd done for himself to stop the world from changing. Nothing he'd done had helped her.

But now…now everything he did would benefit both of them, whether she was around to see it during a visit or if she'd never returned to Austin again. His family would never know or care if he did any good in the world, but perhaps someday Teresa might. And even if she remained married to Marcus Pike for the rest of her days, at least Patrick would have accomplished something that would honor her memory in his heart. He would be a good man.

Yes, he loved her, but if she felt Marcus loved her more, then he felt real gladness for her. She would have what she deserved. At least now she knew how his love for her had finally freed him. Saint Teresa knew the good she'd done in the world by doing good in him.

He stared at his ankle, elevated on the chair to help the swelling to go down. Eventually the TSA would get him to a doctor; currently it was difficult to move him without his being able to walk properly, but-

A flash of movement caught his gaze. Someone had entered. He hadn't even heard it.

Beautiful emerald eyes stared at him solemnly. She'd come back to him.

And suddenly Patrick Jane's world was golden again.

* * *

_**The end**_


End file.
